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The use of manganese in batteries for battery electric vehicles is being increasingly explored, with density, charge, costs and durability being among the factors that are putting the hard grey metal with which South Africa is well-endowed on a pedestal.

The latest highlight of this is the selection of a North American manganese project being developed by Johannesburg-, Sydney- and London-listed South32 for a financial grant to support the potential development of a commercial-scale manganese production facility.

Involved is the United States Department of Energy's (DoE's) selection of the Hermosa project in Arizona for a $166-million award negotiation from its Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Programme.

The grant will support the hoped-for development of a commercial-scale facility to produce manganese, which South32 already does at considerable scale in South Africa's Kalahari Manganese Field, which is by far the largest land-based manganese deposit on earth and the world's top producer of manganese metal tonnage. South32's other manganese-producing operation is Gemco in Australia, which was recently impacted by a cyclone.

"We welcome this grant," said South32 CEO Graham Kerr, who described it as recognition of the promise of Hermosa's Clark deposit to likely supply battery-grade manganese to the emerging North American market.

"Hermosa represents a regional scale project with the potential to produce commodities critical to a low-carbon future across multiple deposits for decades to come," Kerr added in a release to Mining Weekly.

"Following the final investment approval earlier in the year, construction of our large-scale, long-life Taylor zinc/lead/silver project is progressing as planned.

"Our investment in Taylor will unlock value for future growth options, including Clark, by establishing significant shared infrastructure.

"In addition to Taylor and Clark, we are continuing further exploration programmes at Peake to test the potential for a continuous copper system connecting Peake and Taylor."

On a cost-share basis, the DoE will, subject to final negotiation, provide 30% of the cost of the manganese production facility, up to $166-million.

Construction of the facility and the development of Clark represents an opportunity to establish a North American supply chain of battery-grade manganese in a phased approach in line with market development.

Potential customers are being engaged to advance product qualifications for battery manufacturing, including potential agreements for future supply following the signing of multiple non-binding memoranda of understanding.

A decline at Clark to enable bulk sampling through a demonstration plant and further underground exploration is under construction and decline access is scheduled for the end of 2025. This work is being supported through a $20-milion grant through the Defence Production Act Investment Programme.

MANGANESE METAL COMPANY

Interestingly, South African Manganese Metal Co (MMC) of Mbombela, Mpumalanga, is making a first-mover advance to enter the manganese battery metal market, which is progressing super-fast.

Being established by MMC is a faster stream to market, ahead of the company becoming a manganese-ore-to-sulphate producer from its current position as the world's purest 99.9% pure manganese metal from manganese fines.

"From Mbombela, this is a phenomenal exponential expansion - the South African story taking a big step forward," MMC chairperson Bernard Swanepoel explained to Engineering News & Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview in which MMC CEO Louis Nel provided detailed insight on May 31.

"However, just as China did not wait for the world and America and Europe are not waiting for South Africa, the battery space is developing super-fast. We do not have to back a technology or a combination of minerals. We will be supplying manganese in the shape and form that the precursor manufacturers want it to these manufacturers as soon as possib...

Half of the employees of the emerging Prieska Copper Zinc Mine in South Africa's prospective Northern Cape were, as of June 30, made up of members of the host community towns of Prieska, Marydale, Vanwyksvlei and Niekerkshoop, Orion Minerals reported on Friday.

Through the development of its mineral resources base located in South Africa's Northern Cape, Orion Minerals aims to be a next-generation base metals producer supplying future-facing metals for the global transition to a lower carbon future.

The final drawdown from the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa and Triple Flag funding facilities, which collectively total R370-million for site establishment and trial mining, was received this month.

Trial mining has already resulted in 103 members out of a total of 206 on-site employees being near-mine people, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange main board listed Orion stated in a release to Mining Weekly.

In addition, a consequential proportion of the Prieska mine's goods, services and subcontracting opportunities have been awarded to local suppliers in that 69% of contracts have been awarded to businesses that are either based in, or employ labour from the host communities of, Siyathemba and Vanwyksvlei, and 31% to businesses located elsewhere in the Northern Cape.

Site preparation and site establishment for trial mining were completed in June. Ore sourced from the trial mining will be used for metallurgical optimisation tests and the detailed design of a modular sulphide concentrator plant.

Then, at Orion's Okiep Copper Project, 450 km west of the Prieska mine, the company headed by Boksburg-born CEO Errol Smart is on track to complete a bankable feasibility study for Flat Mines Area, where Orion has acquired 12 156 ha of surface rights to assure access.

Moreover, at Orion's Jacomynspan nickel, copper and platinum group element project, 70 km north of the Prieska flagship, battery electric vehicle manufacturers could well become the end-users of the metal vapour powder products that Orion will be producing through the deployment of inventive refining technology.

Meanwhile, copper ore from trial mining is stockpiled on surface at Prieska, where the upgrade of the Cuprum electrical substation has been completed for the supply of 15 MVA, which is sufficient power for dewatering and early mining operations to run simultaneously.

Mechanical and electrical infrastructure installed in June 2024 has the capacity to provide more than the required 500 m3/hour of dewatering.

Blasting required to construct the lined 13 ha water storage dam/future tailings storage facility at Prieska has been completed, and key infrastructure for the water storage dam is being installed.

DECREASED OPERATING LOSS

The decreased operating loss of A$7.94-million for the reporting period was primarily driven by exploration expenditure of A$4.24-million, contractor, consultant and adviser expenses of A$2.4 million, a net unrealised foreign exchange loss of A$2-million, and finance income of A$4.37-million, principally related to interest receivable on investment in preference shares.

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses the R18bn platinum group metals project in Limpopo that received the feasibility green light; Heraeus believes platinum group metals can play an essential decarbonisation role beyond hydrogen; and the high value of South Africa’s surface gold recovery, highlighted by DRDGold.

In the dusty, treeless outback of Southern Australia, a brand new mining camp is home to a hundred workers, putting in 12-hour days, two weeks at a time. Dozens of trucks are scattered across the vast acreage, mounted with towering rigs drilling more than 2 km underground. All are focused on the hunt for one of the world's most coveted minerals: copper.

Oak Dam, discovered by BHP Group geologists in 2018, is a glimmer of hope for CEO Mike Henry, who sees global copper demand doubling over the coming decades as the energy transition takes hold, and wants his company to produce more of it. The deposit is also a rarity - if all goes to plan, a new operation will be built here by the world's largest miner, from scratch.

"Globally, there would be few companies conducting drilling campaigns of this scale, to this depth," said Michael Fonti, BHP's main exploration geologist at the site, pointing out a diagram of the cone-shaped deposit.

Fonti has spent more than two decades on sites much like this one, working most recently at the miner's nearby Olympic Dam, a vast, challenging copper and uranium operation. But even for BHP - a $140-billion company which generated almost $12-billion in free cash flow in the last financial year - large, greenfield projects are scarce, and becoming more so. Deals, not discoveries, are grabbing the headlines.

Copper's bull narrative, which helped prices hit an all-time high in May, is well understood. Electrification, wealthier populations and an expanding, energy-hungry technology sector are vast new sources of demand. An electric vehicle requires roughly three times the copper that goes into a conventional car, and the energy transition won't happen without enough red metal for grids, batteries and chips.

This should all be prompting a surge in prospecting and digging, to ensure supply keeps up, especially as large, established mines age. It isn't - and that risks making this much-needed metal punitively expensive.

Miners have been in spending purgatory for over a decade, atoning for the excesses of the last boom. For years, investors demanded generous returns, not production growth and certainly not risk. But now that diggers can open the purse strings again, high costs, slow permits and other hurdles are pushing the largest metal producers to buy - not build.

BHP, even with its effort to build out the copper belt of South Australia, is no exception.

Asked at its earnings briefing last month, Henry said the company was opportunistic about deals and not pursuing them at the expense of exploration, nor was BHP making a blanket decision on cost. There was no rule of thumb on buying or building, he said.

Still, in less than two years, BHP has bought copper and gold producer OZ Minerals for $6.4-billion, betting on South Australia's copper province; tried and failed to buy peer Anglo American for $49-billion, in large part for its South American copper mines; then in July agreed to buy copper miner Filo jointly with Lundin Mining, a bet on a project in development on the Argentina/Chile border.

"Mining is cyclical, and a key factor driving the trend of buying over building is the point in the cycle," said Campbell Cooper, a Melbourne-based advisor at Greenhill & Co., an investment bank. "Recent years have also seen an acceleration in the cost of building new mine capacity. Arguably that cost may not be fully reflected in equity valuations, making buying more attractive."

Building from zero, in short, is both worryingly risky and unappealingly pricey.

No wonder, then, that only roughly a quarter of the sector's sanctioned - or approved - projects between 2019 and 2023 were of the greenfield variety, according to analysts at Jefferies. That's down from more than half in the 2009 to 2013 period. The size of new projects is also shrinking.

"There was a raft of copper discoveries in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s," said BHP's Fonti. "Everything being produced now is from that era of discoveries." Escondida, t...

The maintaining of the platinum group metals (PGM) mining sector is quite vital for South Africa, Afriforesight chief economist Nathan Musson posited during a webinar covered by Mining Weekly.

Looking at the labour statistics for the first quarter of this year, the PGM sector still accounted for just over 40% of all earnings that were paid into South Africa's mining resource sector, Musson calculated. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

"So, a lot of people working, a lot of money still being earned, even with all the constraints," he added, while identifying the holding back of capital investment, which will pause potential growth, as the major current risk to the PGMs industry.

Outside of Zimbabwe, he cited Russia as the only other source of significant supply potential - but Russia may conceivable also opt to defer growth depending on how the geopolitical tensions go in the future.

"So, comparatively speaking, there's a strategic benefit in South Africa looking to the future, even if some of the demand stream might not be quite as strong and there may still be some need for consolidation in the industry going forward," Musson propounded.

The automotive sector is by far the biggest market for PGMs, where they have been used for decades as vehicle exhaust catalysts to limit the emission of pollution into the atmosphere, but auto demand is currently down.

"Car sales are very much constrained at the moment by high interest rates, but we see those interest rates coming down and global growth picking up going forward," said the chief energy economist and bulk commodities head Vinesh Chetty of Afriforesight, which describes itself as a research organisation that helps the mining industry to plan for the future.

Although battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids are gaining market share, they are growing off a small base and by Afriforesight's forecast, petrol-powered cars are still going to be the largest single powertrain type, even beyond 2028.

"So, that means we're still going to need PGMs to go into these new petrol-powered cars, new diesel cars and new hybrids," said Chetty amid many governments around the world shifting away from their all-electric targets and more use cases for plug-in hybrid vehicles being observed.

Rising demand for hybrids is coming about owing to consumers liking the ability to use the electric power around town and the petrol for long distances and being able to refuel the petrol tank in minutes, instead of recharging the battery in hours.

"And again, those hybrids use PGMS because they do have an internal combustion engine, so those rising hybrid vehicle sales are boosting PGM demand.

In addition, biofuels, ethanol and carbon neutral fuels including synthetic petrol made with hydrogen are also being deployed.

"All of that can help the PGM use case, and on the petrol-, diesel- and hybrid-vehicles themselves, emission standards are still tightening, requiring more PGMs in the vehicle emission systems to reduce the amount of global warming gasses that are emitted into the atmosphere," said Chetty.

He cited China as being the country where most BEVs are sold, and spoke of fewer BEVs being sold in the Europe and the US.

At this stage, BEVs do not make use of PGMs although research is under way by Florida University of the US to test the utilisations of PGMs in a lithium sulphur battery. The early results indicate improved cost effectiveness, and better energy density, making the batteries therefore operate for a longer period of time. Testing is under way at Battery Innovation Center in Indiana, and if that is progressed sufficiently, batteries in BEVs would become a meaningful demand segment for PGMs.

This would mean PGMs would catalyse internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, and BEVs - the entire spectrum and having a significant demand segment for palladium, particularly.

Afriforesight chief sustainability engineer and PGMs head Kirt...

The presentation of DRDGOLD CEO Niël Pretorius at the thirty-sixth annual Gold Forum Americas 2024 in Colorado Springs highlighted the company's world-leading gold-from-tailings advances that restore the environment, uplift communities and pay consistent dividends to shareholders.

Spelt out was DRDGOLD's repositioning for the future, which involves a combination of reclamation sites coming on stream by financial year (FY) 2028 to increase tonnage throughput to three-million tonnes a month and gold production to more than six tonnes a year - a rise of one tonne.

The Johannesburg- and New York-listed DRDGOLD spotlighted its progress in large-scale mechanised on-surface gold recovery at its 13-year life-of-mine (LoM) Ergo on the East Rand and the fast-advancing 20-year LoM Far West Gold Recoveries (FWGR).

Execution of advanced proprietary technology by a specialist skillset reverses the environmental legacy of mining and frees up property for new use.

The circular economy is progressed, carbon footprint reduced and water stewardship upheld by South Africa's oldest listed mining company still in operation, which has declared dividends uninterruptedly for the past 17 years.

Construction of Ergo's 40 MW PV solar power plant is on track for completion next month and construction of a 160 MWh battery energy storage system is proceeding.

By FY 2025, PV will contribute about half of Ergo's energy consumption and reduce electricity costs by R9/t to R15/t.

The long-term goal is to play a leading role in the consolidation of tailings operations in South Africa while simultaneously exploring how international opportunities can be operationalised.

Interestingly, the recovery of platinum group metals and battery metals is also under intense scrutiny.

Last year, World Gold Council membership involved DRDGOLD embracing responsible gold mining principles, against which self-assessment began in May.

The capital reinvestment programme in progress includes $110-million on the Driefontein 2 Plant expansion and $200-million on the regional tailings storage facility (RTSF) at FWGR, as well as $85-million for site establishment at Ergo.

Once commissioned, the RTSF will be large enough to receive the operation's entire remaining West Rand resource and provide a solution to the ongoing impact of tailings storage facilities built over environmentally sensitive aquifers in the region.

Earlier this month, DRDGOLD transferred an agriculture entrepreneurship project to the community of Riverlea, near its Ergo mining operation, as part of creating self-sustaining livelihoods.

"We're committed to improving the quality of life of our affected communities both through an improvement in the environmental conditions in which they live and through the roll-out of self-enabling poverty alleviation and educational programmes," Pretorius stated in the presentation to Mining Weekly.

Platinum group metal (PGM) catalysis can play as an essential decarbonising role beyond hydrogen generation, where its use in proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology for water electrolysis and fuel cells is being increasingly seen as essential.

As has been reiterated for some time, PGMs and hydrogen belong together. But now being posited that the decarbonising effect of these largely Southern African-sourced special metals could well extend significantly beyond planet-protecting green hydrogen into carbon dioxide biomass as well perhaps even polymer waste.

To treat these, PGM catalysis can, once again, play as an essential role.

This is the main takeaway from Mining Weekly's interview with Dr Philipp Walter, the executive VP Business Line Hydrogen Systems, Global Business Unit Heraeus Precious Metals, now returned from his recent presentation at the New York Platinum Week. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

On the one hand, PGMs main applications are as electro catalysts for electrolysers, and on the other hand for fuel cells, which turn the hydrogen back into green electricity.

Mining Weekly: Why is green hydrogen such a key solution when it comes to clean fuel, energy storage, decarbonisation, and the greening crucial materials?

Walter: Hydrogen is an energy vector in this respect, so it has an ability, when being formed by means of electrolysis, to store energy and this stored energy can then either be released through fuel cells, through chemicals or through use as fuels, so it can be burned, and then you have only water as a byproduct and not any other carbon containing compounds.

New York heard that PGMs are building a toolbox for hydrogen applications. Tell us about that.

PGMs are toolbox because of their synergistic effects. They have a different cost profile, and basically, depending on a certain target application, what you can do is mix PGMs to achieve a certain target property profile, including a certain cost profile, which has been done in many instances in the past for emission catalysts.

What is the relationship between water electrolysis and PGMs?

There are different water electrolysis technologies, and a lot of these technologies apply PGMs. The major use, however, is foreseen for PEM electrolysis, where platinum is used on the cathode for what is called the hydrogen evolution reaction, and iridium, or iridium and ruthenium, are used on the anode for the oxygen evolution reaction.

What is the latest when it comes to hydrogen electrolyser development how competitive is hydrogen electrolysis?

Water electrolysis, and PEM electrolysis, which is where the PGMs are predominantly used, is developing, and one of the clear targets is to reduce the cost. PGMs bear a certain cost in an electrolyser, but by means of thrifting as well as advanced development, these costs can be reduced by the load of PGMs being reduced, without sacrificing the performance of the respective electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution and the oxygen evolution reaction.

Is the world accepting this?

The world is increasingly accepting the fact that PGMs are essential parts of the PEM technology for water electrolysis as well as fuel cells. There are often attempts to reduce, or even to replace PGMs, but, so far, the peculiar electrochemical stability of PGMs, together with their activity, makes them very hard to replace, so industry is, I think, accepting the fact that PGMs are an essential part of PEM technology.

LATEST PGM-LINKED HYDROGEN ADVANCES

The World Platinum Investment Council reports that Siemens Energy has been contracted to supply and install the electrolysers needed for the 100-MW Hamburg Green Hydrogen Hub to be built at the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power station in the Moorburg district. The order is for six units of Siemens Energy's latest PEM electrolyser model. The stacks will be fabricated at the company's new Gigafactory in Berlin and assembled at its Muhlheim site and at a European partner.

Fuel C...

The latest independent definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the Waterberg platinum group metals (PGM) project in Limpopo is even more emphatic on the economic viability and wealth creation potential of the R18.8-billion scheme, which now has an even-higher 54-year life-of-mine (LoM) outlook from deemed kick-off in December 2025.

Located 85 km north of the town of Mokopane on the northern limb of the well-endowed Bushveld Complex, the long-awaited Waterberg PGM project is a joint venture (JV) between Toronto- and New York-listed Platinum Group Metals (37.19%), Implats (14.86%), HJ Platinum (21.95%) - made up of Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (Jogmec) and Hanwa - and black economic empowerment partner Mnombo Wethu Consultants (26%).

Under the latest financial model, construction is deemed to begin in December 2025, with first production in September 2029.

Ramp-up to steady state will be in May 2032 and mining will be ongoing until 2081.

Platinum Group Metals has an effective 50.16% JV interest owing to its 49.9% ownership of Mnombo,

"We look forward to advancing the Waterberg project for the benefit of our partners and local communities, as well as all the people of South Africa," Platinum Group Metals president and CEO Frank Hallam stated in a release to Mining Weekly on Monday.

Two thousand jobs are expected to be created during construction with 1 425 permanent jobs as steady state mining is achieved.

Platinum Group Metals discovered this section of the Bushveld Complex in November 2011, funded by Jogmec.

In October 2017, Implats purchased a 15% interest in the Waterberg project for $30-million and acquired a right of first refusal for concentrate offtake. Hanwa retains a right to all metal marketing.

The Department of Minerals Resources and Energy granted the mining right in 2021.

The DFS, again carried out by Stantec Consulting International, DRA Projects and Fraser McGill, points to more PGM reserves, longer life, lower cost, and higher free flowing cash from the proposed decline-accessed mechanised platinum, palladium, rhodium, and gold four-element (4E) PGM operation, which has copper and nickel thrown in.

The proven and probable mineral reserve has been notched up by a fifth to 23.41-million 4E oz, plus 0.08% copper and 0.17% nickel.

"PGMs, copper and nickel play key roles in automotive emissions control and energy transition technologies, including that found in battery electric, plug-in hybrid, gasoline hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The Waterberg project is a long life asset capable of profitably producing these critical metals," said Hallam.

The LoM is extended by nine years from the earlier 45-year projection of average production in concentrate of 353 208 4E oz a year and peak annual production of 432 950 4E oz.

Net present value is R11.5-billion, cash cost an average $658/4E oz, all-in sustaining cost $761/4E oz, and free after-tax cashflow R130.59-billion.

The 32-hole infill drill programme completed in 2023 increased the confidence level of resources in shallow mine blocks; measured and indicated mineral resources rose 9.5% to 33.76-million 4E ounces at a 2.5 4E g/t; and inferred mineral resources increased by 6.6% to 8.52-million 4E ounces at a 2.5 4E g/t.

The improved overall position enables the delay of the development of the South Complex T-Zone infrastructure, which saves $200-million in initial capital and simplifies the mine plan, logistics, training requirements, equipment fleet and mining method.

The dry stack tailings technology modelled, which includes a dewatering plant and dry tailings handling system, cuts water needs by 36% to 2.85 megalitres a day and reduces the tailings footprint by 46% to 155 ha.

Decline tunnels, which are less costly to install and operate than vertical shafts, are the envisaged access providers to the PGM deposit, which is 140 m down at its shallowest.

More than 100 m in thickness in places, the orebody allows for bulk mining on 20 m to 40 m s...

Mining Weekly Editor Martin Creamer discusses a platinum deficit of more than a million ounces because of significant demand; he tells us why development finance institutions are seen as key architects of the hydrogen economy; and notes that infrastructure investment is a must for economic growth and job creation.

Conventional mining typically focuses on a single large operation. In contrast, what is unfolding on South Africa's Northern Cape Copper Belt is the deployment of a cluster mining model, which embraces 12 opencast and underground mines that are being developed in a manner akin to artisanal mining.

The dozen mines - and in time there will likely be many more as the cluster area hosts another 50 exploration sites - will all make use of the same copper processing infrastructure. (Also see attached infographic.)

Interestingly, the cluster mining model being implemented by Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) AltX-listed Copper 360 - AltX CPR - allows for the simultaneous development and operation of multiple mines within a single region.

Importantly, this provides an opportunity to sidestep mining's usual downtime, grade fluctuation, development and depletion challenges, in a way that single large-scale operations cannot.

Put more clearly, when one mine experiences production issues, the other mines are made to lift their game to keep output on an even keel.

The 12 opencast and underground mines in question are within 13 km of one another, across more than 19 000 ha.

All will process their ore in Nababeep, the Namaqualand copper town 19 km north-west of the town of Springbok.

The orebodies include Rietberg - which is already in production - Jubilee and Homeep - which are next in line to do so - as well as Klondike, Wheal Julia North, Whyte's West, Koeëlkop, Hoogkraal and Waaihoek.

While the mines are geographically close, they differ in size, ore grade, stage of development, and operational status, reflecting a form of risk-lowering that diversification normally provides.

If one site within the cluster experiences a drop in ore grade, focus will be shifted to a site that hosts higher grade ore, or the rate of higher grade extraction will be stepped up to ensure steady-state production.

This dynamic approach makes the best of high-, medium- and low-grade orebodies, hedging grade fluctuation and geological surprise through grade mix.

Very importantly, too, the cluster mining model being deployed reduces environmental impact by eliminating the need for multiple waste dumps, with the process area hosting a single tailings facility.

In addition, the processing is scalable and adaptable. Ore from new mines can be added, or material from existing mines scaled down, based on demand, resource availability and technology advancement.

Besides this flexibility, proximity adds logistical efficiency and rapid response.

Development phases will be staggered to ensure that while some mines are being prepared for future production, others are well into revenue generation, which smooths the production curve and fights shy of peaks and throughs.

The producing Rietberg is a mine of appreciable size, with its three adits giving access to three different levels, which in themselves provide a semblance of mine diversification.

"It's like the key that unlocks all the other orebodies," Copper 360 chairperson Shirley Hayes enthused to Mining Weekly in an online interview that reflected her keenness to unlock the opencast Jubilee, followed by Homeep East.

Not being at the mercy of a single mine makes it more likely for cash flow to remain steady.

Moreover, by leveraging the strength of each mine type, the cluster model has the potential to achieve consistent production and profitability.

"Never underestimate the power of having various eggs in one basket," quipped Hayes, in pointing out a cluster model of the kind being deployed can only be duplicated in an area similar to the Northern Cape Copper Belt, with its different orebodies.

"We've been busy for quite a long time. We've built our solvent extraction-electrowinning plant, we've generated cash flow through the rehabilitation of historic dumps, and we've bought Nama Copper, our first concentrator plant, which is in production."

Copper 360's second concentrator plant, which is bigger, is on its way to com...